Key West, Last Link in the Chain — William Williamson

Key West. The last link in the chain that forms a necklace of islands called the Florida Keys. A town proclaimed the richest city per capita in America one decade to being one of the poorest cities a generation later and declaring bankruptcy. The island has always been home to a distinctive cultural and maritime history since 1828 with a past that at times has been dubious but always alluring and intriguing to visitors. Between the diverse collection of residents that Key West has attracted and the different industries that have flourished in their day before collapsing, the town has re-invented itself many times over.

Corky Roberts hitchhiked to Key West to meet the man he recently learned is his father. In the Key West Cemetery where the departed rests and their final say is etched for eternity in stone and statue, standing in the sweltering August heat viewing the family burial plot with Cat, a young woman he met in Key Largo the day before, as Corky's older brother, Henry, a writer struggling with his second novel narrates what he knows of their family, Corky learns two things.

His dead ancestors from the past all carried certain human eccentricities throughout their lives from merely being Conchs, born and raised in Key West, as does the handful of his living relatives he's never met which makes him more determined than ever to meet his father, Jake. Whether Jake accepts him as his son or rejects him doesn't matter to Corky. He's realizing you can't change the past or who you are nor is he going to run from the past as Cat is doing. Corky just wants to know. Knowing is better than not knowing. Henry isn't quite sure.